- A man takes a side of beef out of a cooler truck and brings it to the butcher (Marty, our hero), as he handles the busy shop from behind the counter.
- Miss Rosari watches Marty bone-out some pork chops and asks after his family: His kid brother has just been married, and his other brother was married before, his three sisters were married before that.
- She says he should be ashamed of himself; he should get married and have children. She wants to know what's the matter with him.
- Miss Canduzo, the next customer, has precisely the same conversation with him. Marty merely smiles, and sighs.
- At the bar, a group of men are drinking beers and have just finished listening to the Dodgers game.
- One of Marty's friends is talking about two nurses he's met and is going to go out with—they're "a sure thing." Another is reading an adult magazine called Girls & Gags. It was a simpler time.
- Marty orders a beer and lets them yap on, then joins his friend Angie (short for Angelo, we bet), in a nearby booth.
- The guy with the two nurses on lock asks Marty for a little loan, but realizes he already owes him. After he walks away, Marty shakes his head, saying how that guy "always has girls, but no money."
- Marty and Angie read the newspaper and drink their beers. "What do you feel like doing tonight?" Angie asks Marty. "I don't know, what do you feel like doing?" Marty asks Angie.
- We get the sense this is a conversation they're used to having.
- They don't want to go bowling, like last Saturday night. Angie suggests they call up "that big girl" Mary Feeny, whom they met at the movie theater a month back. He'll take the skinny friend, he says. Marty didn't like her, and doesn't want to call her.
- The two friends talk about how they always talk about not knowing what to do with their weekend nights. Angie tries again to get Marty to call Mary Feeny, saying she liked him, but Marty says no.
- Angie suggests 72nd Street, where "you have to beat 'em off with sticks." We think by "em" he's talking about the laydeez.
- Marty is having none of this. He's sick of having to go out every Saturday looking for some perfect girl, and sick of having everyone tell him he should be married.
- Angie says his mother drives him crazy about being single, and Marty says his does too.
- Off-screen a phone rings. The bartender tells Marty that his mother is on the bar phone, which is as good a reason to be grateful for cell phones as any.
- Angie says he's outta there, and Marty says to meet him later in the evening at his house and they'll figure out something to do.
- The camera cuts to Teresa Piletti, Marty's mom, on the phone at their house.
- She's a fiftyish woman in a dowdy polka-dot dress and a crucifix pendant. She tells her son that his cousin Tommy and his wife Virginia are over, that they're waiting to see him.
- Marty says okay, he'll see her in "two or three minutes" (talk about a local bar) and that he wanted to talk to his Cousin Tommy about something anyway.
- Teresa says goodbye and goes to sit down at the dining room table, where Tommy and Virginia are waiting.
- Virginia is a young blonde woman who seems impatient. She starts to tell the story of an argument she's had with her mother-in-law, Teresa's sister Catherine.
- They had a fight over how to take care of the baby, and she spilled some milk, and her mother-in-law complained about that, over and over, until Virginia was so mad that she threw the bottle against the door—not at her mother-in-law, like Catherine's been telling everyone.
- Tommy and Virginia ask Teresa if Catherine can come live with her and Marty. Teresa says she totally understands what her sister can be like, that she's "an old goat," and she just has to ask Marty if it's okay, and everything will work out just fine.
- Virginia bursts into tears of relief, and Tommy smiles. Teresa goes and makes coffee for them.
- Tommy asks Teresa how Marty is doing, and she says he's fine, but does he know a nice girl he can set Marty with?
- Tommy says it'll be fine, he'll get married, but Teresa has her doubts, and asks where he can go to meet a girl.
- He says he met Virginia at a dance hall called the Stardust Ballroom, which was the slightly-more-mannered meat-market before nightclubs came on the scene. He says it's a place full of "tomatoes," a.k.a. hot women. (More on tomatoes in "Symbols and Tropes.")
- Virginia, still teary, thanks Teresa for allowing her sister to move in.
- Marty arrives home through the kitchen, and washes his hands as his mother explains the situation, and is it okay the "lonely old women" comes and moves in?
- Marty says sure, it's fine, and his mother smiles and pats his face.
- Marty enters the dining room, and his mother tells the cousins the good news. They thank him.
- He says that there's plenty of room. Teresa says she'll come over to their house that night and break the news to her sister. The cousins are so happy, they can't stop explaining and thanking them.
- Virginia follows Teresa back into the kitchen as Marty and Tommy sit down to talk. Marty listens politely, and then asks if Tommy can give him some advice about buying the butcher shop from his boss, since his cousin is an accountant.
- His boss, having married off all his children, is retiring to California to live near their daughter.
- Tommy says it sounds like a good deal, but he'll talk to him more after church on Sunday, since they have to go relieve the babysitter.
- Marty says okay, thanks, since he has to tell his boss on Monday whether he'll buy the shop or not.
- Getting up to leave, Tommy says he wants to pay Marty to board his mom. Marty says no; he won't accept any cash.
- As the company leaves, Marty sits alone at the dining room table, looking like his big old head is full of all kinds of thoughts.